I love my neighbors.

I ordered my mom a fairly valuable Christmas gift online - something that Sis, Dad, and I are all getting her and I am very excited about it - but I worried a lot about it being delivered at the normal mid-afternoon FedEx time. We have a great street of neighbors but lots of neighborhood wanderers that make me nervous to leave valuables on the front porch for hours. As it turns out, my suspicions were partially justified. The gift was delivered today and our awesome neighbors spotted someone prowling about looking to see if it was worth taking. They never actually made it into the yard - just walked past scoping things out multiple times - so the neighbors scooted over and grabbed it off the front porch. They literally stopped me when I pulled in the driveway to tell me they had it so...thanks neighbors for saving Christmas. More confirmation that we are where we are supposed to be.

Coincidentally, they also said to look for a regular USPS box because the mailman had gone up on the porch to leave something. It must have come early enough for Chad to bring it in because it was a Mom's Majik Mox full of the ingredients for a chicken and pasta casserole, minus fresh chicken. I have gotten a kick out of wishing they HAD stolen the box full of casserole ingredients because it would have taught them a hilarious lesson - or maybe they needed it? Either way, the Christmas gift is safe and so is the casserole. And a word to the wise (or maybe not-so-wise?) - the two paranoid, awesome, retired dudes that live across the street? They are watching out for us.

New Bees!

Chad's mom ordered him new bees for his impending birthday (it's the big 3-0. Don't tell him I told you.) They were delivered bright and early Saturday morning but it was too cold on Saturday preceding bad overnight storm so we waited until this morning.

We hope that these two new hives will stick around and be successful after we lost both of our hives this past year.

St. Elmo Sweetness lives on, fingers crossed.  

When you order bees, this is how they come to you. The queen is inside that large clump in a little cage of her own.

Under that thin piece of wood at the top is a can of thick sugar syrup with two tiny holes punched it in. They eat this in transit and until you get them in their hive.

 

P.S. these bees are in my guest room at the time this photo was taken. Too cold overnight to leave them exposed so we brought them in the house. The cat was painfully curious so we had to keep the door closed, which she did NOT appreciate.

Here is Chad taking the can of syrup out of the top so he can get to the queen cage.

 

Putting the queen cage in the hive body - it has other bees on it.

The queen cage is plugged with a sugar paste of sorts. The bees will eat through the sugar and release her once they are all in the hive together.

This is the crazy part...you spray the bees down with water (when their wings are wet, they don't fly) and then literally shake/pour them into the hive. You can see the pile of bees spilling into the hive in that photo.

Here you can see that the transport container is much emptier - only a few bees left.

 

Putting the inner cover on...

Putting the outer cover/lid on...

Chad did get stung once on this round because a bee got stuck in his shirt near his armpit. Other than that, all went well.

For the second round, we had a friend come over and help who is interested in getting bees of his own. Chad was teaching/showing and then let M do his thing...

we had to wait 30+ minutes before putting these bees in their hive but we ended up waiting about an hour for M and his sweet wife, K,  to get out of church. It was really perfect timing and worked out really well.

M dumping the bees into the hive while Chad keeps them sprayed. I am sure that 2 sets of hands would be optimal for this entire process but I am too much of a pansy to participate. Either way, it was nice to have M here to use his bravery and help Chad with the second hive.

Inner cover placement...

Bee discussions...brave dudes.

Two new hives!

Crossing our fingers that we get many years out of these girls.

Neighborhood Night Out.

In case you didn't know, last night was National Neighborhood Night Out. Basically, this means that you would get together with your neighbors and hang out - maybe do some fun stuff together. Our neighborhood was totally on board and it makes me love St. Elmo even more. I knew we made the right decision when we bought this old house in Chattanooga's oldest neighborhood but it makes me happy to see our neighbors come together for a little fun.

Not only do we have beautiful old houses here in St. Elmo, there is a fun little shopping area with some nice restarauts too. Every place was open and offering discounts, activities for kids, or something free. I got a beautiful flower from the Making Arrangements florist, just for stopping in to chat. They were doing free activities for kids, the Chicken Legal folks were there (trying to legalize chicken ownership inside city limits....Chad and I are big supporters!), and possible the highlight of the night -

a Corgi parade.

With prizes.

Seriously. How awesome is our neighborhood.

Sadly, don't go searching for pictures of our gal here below. As you might or might not know, she isn't really a fan of other dogs, even a gathering of her own kind. However, you might not know that Corgi's come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Ok, maybe that is a lie. They are generally the same shape - and mostly the same size - with the exception of the especially husky or young ones.

Either way, here are some "cousins" of our Gwen...

These ladies could have been Gwen's twins but I love that they were decked in their Tennessee orange.  (And it looks like they are getting a little love from their human boy).

I love these guys - grey, black, and white with their blue eyes. I don't think these are considered breed standard but I think they are so beautiful!

Then there was this little dude - Fergus. Only about 5 months old - whiich was just a tad bit younger than Gwendolen when we got her. Since our gal is 5 years old now, I can't believe she was ever that small but she was!

We enjoyed our night out with the neighbors. Can't wait till next year!